Church Educational System Honor Code
In the 1901 school catalog this guide of conduct included a prohibition on "strong drink and tobacco", "profanity and obscenity", attending parties not under the control of "responsible persons", "keeping late hours, having improper associates, and visiting places of questionable repute".
[11] Maeser also, however, relied largely on individual student's honor and honesty in keeping the rules, intending faculty visits as times of counsel rather than espionage.
This council met with enough success among students in alleviating cheating that in 1957 BYU president Ernest L. Wilkinson suggested the Honor Code expand to include other school standards.
This led to an expansion during the 1960s which created the bulk of what the Honor Code represents today: rules regarding chastity, dress, grooming, drugs, and alcohol.
[17] The honor code was expanded in the 1970 catalog with a requirement to adhere to the "standards of dress" and the addition of marijuana and LSD to the list of banned drugs.
However, long hair and beards were not completely against the rules until the mid-1970s[17] with the 1978 annual catalog being the first edition to contain any detailed dress and grooming standards code.
[20] The CES Honor Code governs not only academic behavior but also everyday conduct on or off campus as well as dress and grooming standards of students and faculty, with the aim of providing an atmosphere consistent with LDS principles.
On 12 September 1962 Apostles Spencer W. Kimball and Mark E. Peterson and BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson agreed on a university policy that "no one will be admitted as a student ... whom we have convincing evidence is a homosexual".
[29] The ban on any homosexually oriented students was softened a decade later by Wilkinson's successor Dallin H. Oaks in a 19 April 1973 Board of Trustees meeting.
Additionally they would allow students "guilty of irregular sexual behavior" (not including fornication or adultery equivalents) who were "repentant" and "showed evidence" that the act(s) would "not be repeated" while still banning overt and active homosexuals.
[30][32] This program of aversion therapy—which spanned from the late 1950s until at least the late 1970s—was dedicated to "curing" male homosexual students reported by bishops and BYU administrators through administering electrical shocks or vomit inducing drugs while showing "nude" pictures of men to the patient in an attempt to associate pain with homosexual visual stimulation.
[33][34][35][36][37] In the late 1990s a reference to homosexual conduct was added to the code, and in 2001 Associate Dean of Students Lane Fischer over the BYU Honor Code Office stated that it was inappropriate for a BYU student to advocate for the [homosexual] lifestyle by publishing material or participating in public demonstrations as well as advertising ones same-sex preference in any public way.
"[49] In 2023, it was again updated with additional clarity for same-sex behavior "Live a chaste and virtuous life, including abstaining from sexual relations outside marriage between a man and a woman.
[56][57] In regards to medical exemptions, students/faculty must visit a BYU Student Health Center doctor who will fax a recommendation to the Honor Code office.
[57] Students are required to sign in agreement to the Honor Code, Dress and Grooming Standards, Residential Living Guidelines, and Academic Honesty Policy yearly.
These include the ban on the consumption of specific substances, viewing pornography, any extramarital heterosexual "relations", any homosexual conduct, and adherence to the Honor Code, Dress and Grooming Standards, Residential Living Guidelines, and Academic Honesty Policy on and off campus.
Since students are only allowed to live in BYU-approved housing, landlords in the area consider it important to meet the standard in order to gain residents.
[77] There has been several controversies surrounding BYU's honor code, with criticism from students, advocacy groups, local governmental institutions, and national press coverage.
[91] In 2015, religion scholar Dr. Mark Juergensmeyer boycotted a religious freedom conference held on BYU campus in protest over its policy of expelling and terminating LDS students who lose their faith.
[97][98] Beginning in 2014 and continuing through 2016, several students have alleged that when they reported being raped, the school punished them for violating the honor code.
[80][104] This atmosphere may prevent some students from being willing to report similar crimes to police, a situation that local law enforcement have publicly criticized.
[78][105] The Victim Services Coordinator of the Provo Police Department called for an amnesty clause to be added to the Honor Code which would excuse rape survivors for past infractions of BYU policies.
[108]: 8 [109] Controversy surrounding the BYU's honor code has grown since 2014, with criticism from students, advocacy groups, local governmental institutions, and national press coverage.
[110][111][112][113][114] In the fall of 2016 BYU faced national criticism when many called its Honor Code policies for LGBTQ students discriminatory while the university was being considered as an addition to the Big 12 Conference.
